12: Kerning
In twenty-two years of life, Lex thought he'd already made all the worst discoveries about himself, but his father loves to raise the stakes.
He's the son of a murderer.
It was one thing knowing his father had driven some people to suicide or practically killed others, but it's even worse to hold confirmation in his hand that his father arranged the deaths of his own parents. All for the insurance money to start a company. LuthorCorp was founded in the blood of Luthors.
Lex watches the tape three times. It's the confession of Morgan Edge, the crime lord his father partnered with to create the tenement fire. Two months of investigation has led him here.
While growing up, Lex never questioned his father's fabricated history of the sweet little immigrant family who built an empire out of nothing. Although he never met his grandparents, he believed the rosy vision of them. Clung to it in his dreams.
Until Chloe found the trail left by Perry White.
She could have chased the story herself, could have tried to make a career on the takedown of Lionel Luthor. If it succeeded, she would have shaken history.
Instead, she'd handed it to Lex, and even when he gave her a media blackout on the investigation and asked for an impossible two months of embracing secrets, she stayed with him. Just the night before, they'd had a dinner date, and even though his two-month deadline was one day from expiration, she didn't even mention it.
She's not lording it over his head, although he can see the curiosity killing her whenever his father is mentioned. She's trusting him.
No one's ever done that.
Lex has done everything he can to keep her safe. As soon as he considered beginning an investigation, he realized the true reason his father tried to pay so highly to make Chloe disappear; Lionel spoke about how difficult it must be for Lex to sleep with a reporter so close, and he should have seen sooner how it was his father's own paranoia speaking. A reporter close to a Luthor is a bad combination, and Lex's father has much more to hide than Lex does.
From the start, his father worried about what Chloe might uncover.
Which is why Lex couldn't tell her anything, no matter how much it hurt to close her out. His father's attention is on her, and if Lionel got any wind of her poking into his history, he wouldn't hesitate to end her career. Maybe even her life—after what Lex has uncovered, he realizes that's a stronger possibility than he ever feared.
But it's over now. Lex managed the investigation on his own, taking every precaution to keep his father unaware. The Attorney General refused to pursue a case against Lionel Luthor without solid proof, and with this taped confession, Lex now has it.
What would his father do if he knew what Lex held?
With shaking hands, he locks the tape in his vault. At two p.m. today, the Attorney General will collect it. By the end of the business day, Lionel will be in handcuffs, charged with first-degree murder.
Once Lex's father is behind bars, will Lex finally be free?
The mansion feels looming and cold. For two months, Lex has been driven by a fire inside, fueled by years of struggle, fueled by Chloe's example of resisting a tyrant. Now it's . . . over? He doesn't know how to feel.
But he knows who he wants to talk to.
Chloe's in morning classes. Lex had planned to speak to her tomorrow, on the deadline, but he finds he can't wait another minute much less another day. He pulls his phone out.
LEX: Come to the mansion. I want to tell you everything.
But just as he presses send, he hears a shattering window and a gunshot.
As soon as Chloe sees the message, her heart swells. Lex hasn't been distant, per se, but he's been distracted. It's taken all her restraint to keep from investigating on her own. But she survived the waiting, and he's ready to open up, and whatever he has to say, she's more than ready to hear it.
She skips her remaining classes and drives toward Smallville. But before she reaches the city limits, her phone starts buzzing. A call from Clark.
"Hey, Head Editor! You never call." She pinches the phone between her ear and shoulder, keeping her hands on the steering wheel.
Clark sounds breathless, panicked. "Chloe, it's Lex. He's in trouble."
Her heart falls, like she's kept driving and left it behind. She clenches the steering wheel.
"I need your help," Clark says.
She swallows. "I'm on my way."
He tells her not to meet at his barn or Lex's mansion, but at her dad's house. She might protest that, except her dad is out of town on a business trip, so the empty house is actually a good option for secrecy. By the time she pulls into the familiar driveway, she's sweating and shaking with worry.
Get it together, Chloe. She shakes her head, blows out a hard breath, and rushes through the door. There's no worry about Clark getting inside despite not having a key; somehow, locked doors are never a deterrent for him.
He's already here, and so is Lex.
Chloe bites her lip, working very, very hard on that get it together.
Lex is curled in the corner, rocking a blanket and singing to it softly. Clark warned her on the phone, but even so, seeing her boyfriend in the middle of a mental break is so much worse than hearing about it. Tears gather in Chloe's eyes, and she breathes carefully to keep them from falling.
She can handle this. She has some experience with insanity—from her own mother.
Rather than speaking to Clark, she goes straight to Lex, crouching down and waiting for his eyes to meet hers. His are glassy, but he seems calm, smiling in a distant way. Scabbed blood marks a group of short cuts just above his eyebrow, like he's been pistol-whipped. His suit jacket is missing, and his blue shirt is untucked, unbuttoned at the top and rolled unevenly at the cuffs.
"Julian's sleeping," he tells her, cradling the blanket.
His baby brother who died as an infant, a loss that still haunts him.
Chloe has to swallow hard before she can speak. "You're a good brother, Lex. And I'm here to help."
That doesn't seem to mean much. She's not positive he actually knows who she is. Slowly, she backs away, turning to speak in private to Clark.
"What happened?" she demands in a whisper. She had dinner with Lex just the night before, and he was fine, other than complaining about a neck ache and a little tiredness, which he chalked up to overworking.
Clark fills her in on everything he left out over the phone. Lex showed up in his barn, injured and claiming he'd been attacked. When Clark went to the mansion, there was no evidence anything had happened, and soon after, Lionel came looking, claiming Lex was suffering from psychosis, a danger to himself and others. Claiming it wasn't the first time.
"I didn't know where to take him." Clark looks almost as lost as Lex, but even though he's clearly freaked out, it means everything that he didn't abandon his friend. "Chloe, I don't know what to believe. Lex told me he was drugged, but if he really needs help like Lionel says, then maybe I'm making things worse. What do we do?"
Chloe purses her lips. She tries to shove her emotions and bias aside, examining the situation, but all she can think about is the day her mother broke, the day she left, the way she's now in a mental institution, guarded by doctors and staring out windows.
"I need to think," she chokes out. "I need to . . . I need my computer."
Clark stays with Lex while she ducks into her old bedroom. She took her laptop to college but left her PC behind because it's the only home computer, and sometimes her dad needs to use it.
She's never investigated Lex. But he gave her permission once. If you ever think I'm in danger, you have my full permission to do whatever investigation is required.
He's certainly in danger now.
After about ten minutes, Chloe returns to the front room, still shaky but steadier. She did find something in Lex's past—a time shortly after Julian's death when he fell apart at school, singing to a baby who wasn't there—but ironically, it only makes her more certain he's being targeted. Julian's death was a huge trauma for Lex; it's believable he had a psychotic episode over it as a kid. But what trauma would have triggered a relapse? Lex has been happier than ever.
Except for one thing: some kind of war with his father. The man who knows no boundaries—and also knows Lex's past and just what to target.
She tells Clark what she's found, along with her suspicions about Lex going after Lionel. "I was on my way here because he was ready to tell me about it. I find this all very suspicious timing, especially with Daddy Dearest popping up right away, ready to 'help.'" She shakes her head, growing certain as she lays it out. "Clark, there's no line Lionel won't cross, even drugging his own son."
Clark nods slowly, but he's frowning. "Why, though? Why would he do this?"
"Lex must have found something truly damning."
If only she could have talked to him before this. She clenches her jaw. Absently, she grabs a pen from a cup on her dad's counter and begins turning it in her fingers.
"Well, whatever it was, it's gone now," says Clark. "When I went to the mansion, Lex wanted me to get a tape, but his safe was completely empty."
"A tape." Chloe's pulse increases, as does her pen spinning. "So he had . . . what? Video of a crime? His father's confession?" That seems unlikely. "Maybe someone's testimony. Someone willing to double-cross his father. Or pretend to—that same person could have told Lionel what Lex was up to."
Oh, Lex. She clenches her hand around the pen, the metal clip digging into her palm. Why didn't he include her from the start? Investigation is her specialty!
She told him he didn't have to do this alone.
Maybe he just didn't think she was good enough to help.
That thought cuts like a knife, and while she's still trying to stitch the wound, Lex stands from the corner. Clark shifts, putting himself slightly in front of Chloe, ever the protector.
"Chloe," Lex rasps. His eyes are dull but no longer glassy. He looks scared.
Without another thought, Chloe ducks around Clark and throws her arms around her boyfriend. He clings to her in return.
"I got your message," she whispers. "I came as soon as I could."
"Chloe, it's my father. He's guilty. He planned it all. I cornered Morgan Edge, and I got everything on tape. How they met, and they set it up, and they paid off the police. My father took the tape. Without that, I can't—"
He's babbling. She's never once heard Lex do that.
"It's okay," she whispers. "Lex, it's okay. You're not alone. I'm here."
"No!" He wrenches back suddenly, grasping her arms in a clawed, painful grip. His steel-blue eyes are wild and red-rimmed. "No, you can't know any of this! He'll come after you. My father won't kill me, but he'll kill you. He's a murderer!"
"Lex, you're hurting me." She tries to say it calmly.
He stumbles back like she hit him, releasing her. Taking shallow breaths, she stands still, trying not to startle him.
"You don't believe me," he whispers, voice cracking.
"I do." Forget calm—Chloe repeats that with all the fire she can muster. "Lex, I do believe you. I will figure out how your dad has been drugging you, I promise. I'll figure it all out."
But that only seems to make him feel worse. He presses the heels of his hands to his forehead, letting out a moan. Her heart breaks with that sound, but before she can speak again, she hears a car out front. She and Clark exchange a wide-eyed stare.
"Lionel knows I'm dating Lex." She swallows hard. "Clark, get him out. Somewhere Lionel won't look. Um, the old Ivy road. There's that abandoned silo."
Lex looks up. "No, Chloe, I'm not leaving you!"
Someone taps on the front door.
"Your father's not after me, Lex," she hisses. "He's after you! If you want me to be safe, then go! Now!"
He wavers, and she glares at Clark. Finally taking the hint, Clark grabs Lex's arm and hauls him toward the back of the house. Chloe grips her pen and goes to answer the front door, waiting until the knocking transforms from polite to incessant.
When she finally swings it open, she does so with an obnoxious smile. "Mr. Luthor! What a surprise. And here I thought the Wicked Witch wasn't in Kansas."
Unlike his disheveled son, Lionel Luthor is dressed in a sharp Armani suit and dimpled tie—a pristine businessman even while on the rampage.
He's a murderer! Lex's voice shouts in her memory. Her grip tightens on the edge of the door.
Lionel has a small army of sanitorium workers with him, courtesy of a van marked Belle Reve. Chloe's familiar with it. Some of the meteor freaks she and Clark have stopped ended up in Belle Reve. It's a horrifying place, less mental hospital and more hell's prison.
If Lionel wants to send Lex there, he'll have to do it over Chloe's dead body.
At a nod from Lionel, the Belle Reve workers flood onto her dad's property, searching. Chloe doesn't even tense. She's watched Clark vanish any number of times; he'll get Lex out.
"Funny thing," she says flatly, still holding the door. "Lex texted me earlier. Said he had something important to tell me. Any idea what that might have been?"
Lionel maintains his air of concerned father. "You've been in contact with Lex? Please, Ms. Sullivan, you must tell me where he is. Your own safety could be at risk, as well as that of my son."
"Frankly, Mr. Luthor, I'd rather read nothing but The Inquisitor for the rest of my life than let you anywhere near Lex."
"Oh, Ms. Sullivan, oh, how you've been deceived." His voice oozes concern, and his mask never slips. This man could mislead saints. "You think Lex cares about you. He's told you I'm the enemy and you're the precious jewel he can't live without. Just what he tells any other woman he pursues. My son is deeply disturbed. Since the death of his mother, he's never been able to form any real attachments, only illusions of them. You'll remember his recently failed wedding—what you perhaps don't realize is that it isn't the first. Lex has been engaged before."
Chloe intends to remain stoic, but something in her expression betrays her. Lionel takes a step closer.
"He didn't tell you that, did he? Just as I'm sure he didn't tell you he first suffered a psychotic episode while attending Excelsior Academy, or that the doctors always warned it could easily repeat. Trust me, Ms. Sullivan, that's not the worst of the secrets. I tried to encourage you to investigate these things. I tried to protect you."
It's a spin, she tells herself. He was never trying to help her or Lex. He was trying to buy her off.
"You must face the reality," Lionel says softly, "that Lex is not some knight in shining armor, come to sweep the poor small-town girl into a luxurious happily ever after. He's just a very confused boy who needs real help. Will you prevent him from receiving that help, all for some romantic delusion of your own?"
Lionel is like a surgeon with a scalpel, making precise cuts into all her insecurities, leaving them exposed and bleeding. Chloe's fingers tremble against the door. Her other hand fumbles, dropping her pen.
From the start, she never felt like she was the girl for Lex. Breaking news—billionaire playboys don't fall in love with newspaper nobodies. It's easy for her self-doubt to believe it was all a misunderstanding, just a dream she wrapped herself in while hitting snooze on the real world. She doesn't have any actual proof of Lex's investigation, only her own assumptions, and if it was real, it means he didn't trust her with it. She has a collection of painful questions without any real answers.
But sometimes, that's what journalism is. Just a bunch of questions and a hunch that something is there, even if the proof hasn't been revealed. The hope that it will be.
And the bravery to dig in her heels to find out.
"Mr. Luthor." Chloe speaks with confidence. "I know Lex isn't an armored knight. Because he isn't a cliché. He's a billionaire who's willing to help his farm-boy best friend put up a fence. He can switch from quoting The Art of War to a romantic poem, and he loves both of them equally, the thrilling war strategies and the swooning sonnets. He's had his heart torn out and stomped on a hundred times—by you—and yet he somehow keeps dusting it off and forcing it to beat again."
Hard edges and soft curves. Honesty and secrets. Fear and bravery. Lex is a man of colliding contradictions, and Chloe is willing to accept every side of him, the light and the dark.
"I'll say it once again: I'm not letting you anywhere near Lex."
She steps back, and she lets the door swing shut.